Without a doubt, life has revealed the presence of this flow, this movement, this protection. Lately, I’ve been getting just what I need, whether it’s a momentary break from the imminent stormy weather long enough to see me through a beautiful, dry bike ride to work, music that makes me smile or puts me face-to-face with myself, a kind word, or a highly unlikely situation that restores my spirit and inspires me. Even with the challenges that accompany life, lately I’ve been feeling even more inspired, more in-tune, more connected to the magic and wonder this world offers. And I’m so very apreciative of it.

This snippet of Oprah’s Master Class where she discusses how The Color Purple taught her about the importance the role surrender plays in the process of getting what you want. It was so amazing and powerful, I wanted to share the entire videos from which the snippet was excerpted. If these videos are too much for you to commit to, please do watch this. It’s much shorter, yet incredibly powerful and inspiring.

Returning to the idea presented in today’s #notetoself, “God can dream a bigger dream for me, for you, than you ever could for yourself.” Thanks, Oprah.

Best wishes on your journey.

love&light…

Intense feelings can lead to anger, a secondary emotion. By secondary emotion, I mean you feel something else before you actually feel anger. Tune in on that emotion. Feel that. What need do you have that isn’t being met, or is being violated? Safety? Honesty? Affection? Respect? Attention?

Use your anger as emotional feedback, as a barometer indicating when you’re in the red. When you know the underlying feelings and missing needs in play, you can work more effectively towards resolving the situation peacefully and heathily.

There’s a fire, an urgency to being angry. Let it work for you, not against you. Understand it to use it.

A good example of an awesome day:

Meeting a friend for brunch and eating delicious raw lasagna. Going to a curly hair event and being surrounded by beautiful, stylish, friendly women who obviously know something about sisterhood. Feeling like you look a mess, but getting lots of compliments. Buying a raffle ticket to support Petals-N-Belles, an organization whose mission to support young women is of notable importance to me. Buying an awesome vintage purse for $10 and an African-printed bangle that makes my heart melt. Collecting a gaggle of free hair products. Building with amazing people. Winning the grand prize of said raffle.

The last time I won a raffle was when I was a kid. It was an Oliver & Company sleeping bag that my grandmother probably still has somewhere. To this day, just the mention of that movie makes me smile.

The funny thing is I wanted to win something. A tee shirt. A bag full of goodies. Something. Kind of, but not really, I was “supposed” to win something. Interestingly, right after I bought my 3 raffle tickets, my friend, Luna also bought 3 tickets. She left the event early and planned to give me her raffle tickets since she wouldn’t be there for the announcement. The grand prize was a painting that artist Lorra Jackson painted at the event. The second prize was a Huetiful Hair Steamer that I definitely wouldn’t have minded winning. The other prizes were gift baskets with assorted hair and beauty products.

My numbers were: 307975, 307976, and 307977. The winning number for the hair steamer was 307978. Whose ticket was that? It belonged to the absent Luna, or if I’d remember to get them from her, me. But I didn’t remember. So they picked another number and some other lucky woman took it home. I was genuinely happy for her, but a bit salty for me. Then, they called the number for the painting. 307976. Shock came to my face as I said, “that’s me.” I didn’t even have the tickets in my hand at this point, figuring some other number would be called–one that wasn’t mine. To my own benefit, I was wrong.

If a simple, nonspecific intention to win “something” can result in me leaving with the coveted grand prize, I need to be more aware of my intentions and energies and what I’m manifesting in my life. There’s been a general feeling of dissatisfaction looming over me recently. While appreciative for what I have, I need more of what works for me in my life and I know that the only thing in the way is me. I posit that, similarly, the most major obstacle in your way is you. Let’s get out of our own way. Let’s reflect to get clear on what we want and take consistent action to making that vision real. That’s definitely what I’m about to do. Please join me.

essentially, that’s what happens when you live in yesterday. the moment always passes in a blur and before you know it, chunks of time have fallen out your hands to the ground, shattered. even if they can be pieced together, the cracks always show.

time is that precious. if you’re anything like me, you spend too much of it in the future or in the past, but not enough being here, now, making this life exactly what you want it to be.

eventually, living in the past becomes trite and the feelings of unfulfillment compound. so stop. now.

survey the moment and appreciate it for what it is and what it isn’t.

instead of reminiscing over what was, build a better “now” now.

There is some debate over whether or not sharing your goals is helpful. Some say by sharing your objectives with others, you feel more accountable to reach them. Others, like CD Baby founder Derek Sivers, says you’re less likely to fulfill your goals because when congratulated on the act of just setting a goal, the brain gets a sort of satisfaction that leaves you feeling closer to your goal, even having made little or no progress towards achieving it. Perhaps that’s why today, I get to face my accountability partner and say, “Hey, so I need one more week,” although the date we settled on—this past weekend—provided me with more than enough time to do what I needed to do.

Regardless of whether or not you choose to discuss your intentions with them, I’m learning that the people you surround yourself with are major factors in your success, failure, or mediocrity. Energy is contagious. It’s difficult to be around self-directed, ambitious people when you yourself have no drive. Likewise, the opposite is true. When you want to achieve so much more than the people around you, you’re the odd man out. The support and contagion of accomplishment isn’t in your network.

When I spend time with other big thinkers, and even more importantly, big doers, I’m left with a healthy sense of “I’m not doing enough” or “I’m not being enough” that urges me towards greater action.

So peace to my support network and inspiring friends. I appreciate who you are and what you have to offer. In an email with my sister where we discussed this, she wrote, “Oprah isn’t friends with slackers.” Indeed, Oprah isn’t friends with slackers. Whether or not Oprah is your least or most favorite person, she’s definitely an icon for success.

Birds of a feather flock together. Choose the right* flock.

* Right being a matter of distinction based upon what is fitting for your personality, lifestyle, and goals.

It’s amazing how much space in our lives we can fill with things that are mostly inconsequential and detract from what actually matters to us, Twitter and Facebook, for example.

This week, I’m committing to my meditation practice, an inspiring beginning to my 30-day fitness challenge, writing more, keeping my vibration high, and being more productive in general. I waste a lot of time. Thing is…that time is life, so I’m wasting a lot of life.

Why commiting to ourselves is important rarely needs explanation, but often requires reminders. So commit to your best interest, your goals, your health, your wealth, your improvement, your joy, your highest vision of who you can be, your ideas and beliefs, your definitions, your style, your version of your life–no one else’s.

We succeed when we dedicate ourselves to the completion of our goals. Life is full of verbs. Commit.

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland entertained me last night, in addition to providing a little inspiration. As Alice fights her fate in Wonderland, Mad Hatter tells her, “You were much more muchier. You’ve lost your muchness.”

Today’s question is “have you lost your muchness?” If the answer is yes, the follow-up question is “what can you do to reclaim it?” If the answer is no, the follow-up is “Yay! Great for you,” and “what’s next?”

Once upon a time, I definitely lost my muchness. It seems to come and go. Right now, though, it’s here and I’m holding on to it with all my might. Last week, I committed myself to a project I’ve been delaying for four years. (Lost my muchness.) I began toiling towards completing that commitment the other night, and in doing so, I reclaimed my muchness. I stared at a blank screen for hours, wondering what to write. Then it hit me. Hard. Today, I reached a milestone. Seemingly small yet monumental in a peculiar way because of what it represents, not necessarily what it is.

Your life is yours. It’s full of purpose, but you’ll never fully engage said purpose without your muchness. There is no diverging from the path because you make the path. You could be doing more. You could be being more. When are you going to start?

Image source: Aeromental

Give life to things which are beautiful. Don’t give life to ugly things. You don’t have much time, much energy to waste. With such a small life, with such a small energy source, it is simply stupid to waste it in sadness, in anger, in hatred, in jealousy.

It is in your hands.

- OSHO

I just thought about the concept, what if there were no mirrors? No reflections. No cameras to take pictures.

If we walked around, never knowing how we “looked,” would there be such an emphasis on the physical? On the material?

Would we be more inclined to work on enhancing our inner selves versus our outer shells?

Would how a person looks even matter, or would that concept be so trivial and unevolved? In this time, this reality of ours, as a collective, we spend most of our time –days and nights– focusing on enhancing everything on the outside, and barely any significant time on what’s inside…that which, from a universal perspective, in an ethereal sense, is what really has any relevance.

Can people really even let go of the material? If that didn’t exist for them, I wonder what would? What would people have if you took away all that centers around this outside, illusory, existence? If money, clothes, and cars no longer determined status. If beauty was no longer gauged by the physical self. Magazines would go out of business. Beauty products, clothing stores, gyms, etc.

What if the standard was how deep one connected with their self, and how in-tune an individual was with the collective consciousness of the universe. Or what if music and other forms of entertainment aided in expanding and attaining a higher level of consciousness, versus having us thinking about chasing paper, sex, violence, and infidelity. Or if it actually united man and woman, over continuing to erode the male/female connection.

Are we just pawns in this world? Are we that weak that we allow others to determine what we deem to be of value, of significance? Are we that stupid to allow these forces to continue to divide us? To keep our souls imprisoned and our minds in constant states of want, like little children and their developing egos. Adults are no different, swayed by the media, by entertainment, by money, showing them what they should be looking like, smelling like, how they should be living, what they should be wearing, and just as children we look, eyes wide open, for others to tell us what is cool, what we should be doing, and then make moves accordingly, doing our best to act out that role, redefining our egos every time, buying into the bullshit, literally and figuratively. Just eating it all up. And in the end, we feel so empty.

Is that you?

Don’t look in the mirror.

“What’s your Soul’s reflection?”

——
Jessica Mann is a sun child with a warm smile, a big heart and an acute case of wanderlust. She focuses on launching a nonprofit to provide inner city youth with the opportunity to travel the world, mothering her four year-old daughter, and following the road less traveled. Her motivating and expansive energy can be found in the city of Chicago and online at her blog, Awakened Soul, and @SoulMotivation.

Image by: Richar Klix

Source: Don’t (White) Sugar Coat It

Last week, I seriously contemplated opting out of this two-year Master’s program I just started a month ago. In theory, it’s a great program and an excellent opportunity. It’s not that it’s not; I use “in theory” because it may or may not be right for me. I’ll be passionate about it every once in a while for a moment, but the excitement always seems to dissipate leaving me wondering if I really want to go down this path.

I was pretty close to pressing the brakes last week. Some understood how I felt and some encouraged me to give it more thought. Down to the wire at a possibly pivotal moment, I decided to make the decision pressure-free and trudge along for now. That meant a weekend of relatively no sleep as I prepared to complete this assignment I grossly over-exaggerated. Hours before my deadline, I realized my error, both in horror and relief. Horror because relaxation, sleep, and the comfort of completion could’ve been my friends much sooner and relief because I think I would’ve missed the deadline. What I built into a high hurdle would’ve only really required a little jump. If I would’ve quit and realized this after the fact, regret would’ve probably accompanied that decision.

Lessons learned:

• Know when to slow down, stop, and keep going.

  I needed to keep going…and fortunately, did.

• Stop torturing yourself by making things more complicated than they are or need to be.

  Yeah. Just don’t do it.

Sometimes you’ll want to quit and you’ll just need to slow down. Sometimes you’ll want to keep going, and you’ll need to quit. Sometimes you’ll want to slow down and you’ll need to keep going. Pay attention to how it all feels.

Anyone who knows me should know that I’m a huge John Mayer fan. His smooth voice lulls me into the rich layers of his music and the profundity of the lyrics keeps me there. Lingering. Pressing repeat and searching for songs I’ve never heard before.

Tonight, I listened to “Clarity” again, causing me to reflect upon a recurring theme in my conversations lately: fear.

So many decisions are made out of fear instead of faith. Faith that the desired outcome will manifest. Faith that I don’t need to be all high-strung and worried because everything will be okay, even if the outcome is different from what I envisioned. Faith that what happens, however uncomfortable, is for a reason.

I’m living with more trust in the process of life and faith that “everything will be okay in the end. if it’s not okay, it’s not the end.” Today, confront your fears. What are they? Where did they come from? Are they truly yours? What can you do to overcome them?

Sometimes we magnify or create perceived obstacles that we’re fully capable of surmounting.Reframe your fears. Question them. Analyze them. Then, face them until you abolish them.*

* I’m doing this too.

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